


Throw Yourself Down

by thisisforyou



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Biblical Reinterpretation, Crowley Has Serious Abandonment Issues, First Kiss, Golgothia, M/M, The Fall (Good Omens), The Flood - Freeform, The wilderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24359107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisforyou/pseuds/thisisforyou
Summary: "I would say, just keep doing what you want to do and assume it's all part of the Ineffable Plan anyway."In which Jesus H Christ is not what Crowley was expecting, and yet somehow still manages to provide some advice that proves useful nearly 2,000 years later.Part I - Golgothia, 33ADPart II - Soho, 2019
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & God (Good Omens), Crowley & Jesus (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 104





	1. Part I: Golgothia, 33AD

**Author's Note:**

> I told y'all I needed Jesus. Though in fairness this probably isn't what any of us thought I meant. 
> 
> Title is from Matthew 4:6 (New International version): 
> 
> _...then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the Temple. "If you truly are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so you will not strike your foot against a stone." Jesus replied, "It is also written: Do not put the Lord your God to the test."_
> 
> For some reason I needed some Crowley/Jesus bromance in my life. I got the impression from the show that in this 'verse it was acknowledged that Jesus was not really the Son of God, just an extraordinary human, so that's what I've leaned into.

_Golgothia, 33AD_

There was an angel in the crowd.

The white chiton stood out from a mile away, impossibly clean and decades out of fashion, blond curls clinging to the heavenly head. He was facing the other way, watching the spectacle in front of them, but Crowley would have recognised the back of that head in his sleep. He had thought they would send someone more senior for something like this, but he couldn't deny he had hoped: the Angel of the Eastern Gate was the only one he could tolerate anyway. He made his way through the crowd to stand behind him, trying desperately not to look over his head at what was happening in front of them.

"Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?" he murmured once he was close enough.

Aziraphale jumped a little at the sound of his voice. "Smirk? Me?"

He was more affected by the sight than he had thought he would be, the man he had known so well laid out on the rough wood, muttering to himself like a lunatic. "Well, your lot put him on there," he said, unable to keep the waspish note from his voice.

"I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley." The angel did not look back at him. Definitely on official business, then.

He tried to keep his voice airy. "Oh, I've changed it."

"Changed what?"

"My name. _Crawley_ \- it's not really doing it for me. It's a bit too... Squirming-at-your-feet-ish."

The image flashed into his mind before he could stop it: sitting across from another man in a busy establishment, his companion smirking to him over a cup of ale.

_"Crawley?" The man had repeated, looking surprised._

_"I was thinking of changing it," he had dismissed. "Not sure it's really working for me anymore."_

_A shrug, a chuckle. "It is a bit... submissive."_

"Well, you were a snake," the angel said reasonably. He shook himself back into the present as the words cut over his memories. "So what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asimodius?"

"Crowley," he said simply, still not looking at the other being, for all the world like both of them were simply speaking to the crowd at large, their proximity to each other a mere coincidence. He felt rather than saw Aziraphale nod in an approving sort of a manner. It shouldn't have mattered to him what the angel thought of his choice, but on some level it was nice to think he was satisfied.

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the spectacle in front of them, ropes tightening around slim wrists, the horrifying crawl of nails readying against wood.

"Did you ever meet him?" Aziraphale said suddenly.

_"Something tells me you are not quite of this world," the son of God had said calmly, looking Crowley up and down until he felt more exposed than he had since the moment of the Fall, after he had come apart and before he had been able to put himself back together. His job description had been to lie, to say he was an angel, a guardian, a heavenly vision, but he suddenly wanted to tell him every word of the truth, to feel just that step closer to the God who had abandoned him._

_The Messiah had been walking into a bar when he'd finally tracked him down, like the setup for some obscene cosmic joke, looking for all the world like any other human out for a drink and a spot of lunch. He hadn't known what to expect from the orders he had been given - Hell hadn't_ thought _the Almighty had really put more effort and attention into this one human than any other, but you could never be sure with God. "Just go check him out," Beelzebub had hummed irritably. "See whether there's anything to it. But_ don't _engage with him."_

_He'd never been very good at following orders._

_Crowley had forced himself to smile a demonic smile. "You're one to talk," he drawled._

_The carpenter had laughed it off with more frank honesty than Crowley had ever expected, waving an airy hand at the seat opposite him. "I think you and I can dispense with that," he had chuckled. "We are all children of God. I have never claimed to be any more so than anyone else." He had smiled a peculiar smile that Crowley had never seen before, an unexpectedly devious gleam in his dark eyes. "If believing I was sent by God makes people want to follow my teaching, then so be it."_

_"That's not very Holy behaviour," Crowley had commented idly as he sat, waving down a barman and starting to compose his report back to Hell in his mind._ Just an ordinary human with a Messiah complex and a fairly crafty brain.

_Jesus Christ had ordered a drink with a shrug. "Life is not so simple as that," he had said. "It is not for me to say whether I act for good or ill. All I do is what I think is best. I think in my life I have helped more people than I have hurt, and that is enough."_

_He had to doubt that Heaven would see it that way, but neither of them had any control over that._

_Wine arrived, and was drank, enough for even Crowley to begin to feel the buzz of it in his fingers, but the supposed son of God matched him drink for drink and looked none the worse for it. They talked easily, and Crowley could feel himself begin to properly relax for the first time since Eden. He had already established that his companion was as human as they come, and yet somehow he felt like an equal; he had understood with only a glance what Crowley was, and it had not phased him. The permission to be_ himself _was unexpectedly freeing._

_They spoke of Galilee, of the teachings of morality, of the first man who had approached him one day convinced he had been sent from Heaven and would not be dissuaded. An errant word caught Crowley's attention for a moment and he frowned thoughtfully._

_Jesus had paused mid-sentence, rolling his tongue between his teeth. "What?"_

_"Oh, nothing. It's just... Last time I heard the voice of God was a long time ago, but it definitely sounded female. Just hearing you say 'Father' seems a bit jarring."_

_The man thought about this for a moment, looking shaken. "I hadn't considered that," he admitted eventually. "I imagine if I started referring to God as a woman people would have something to say about it."_

_Crowley didn't suppose the Almighty would be terribly concerned with pronouns, but then he hadn't thought She would cast him out of Heaven for listening to Lucifer, so he shrugged instead._

_As though he could tell where the demon's mind was going, the Messiah lifted his cup to his lips again and leaned forwards critically. "Tell me about the Fall," he said unexpectedly. Crowley almost knocked over his own wine in shock, but Jesus simply looked at him with his usual ethereal calm. "I mean - I know in broad terms what happened. I want to know how you were involved. I'm struggling to picture you in the rebellion."_

_After a moment of shock that his new companion could be so bold, Crowley actually started to think about the question. He had spent an eternity dwelling on the precise circumstances of the Fall, before the Garden had been created and he had had better things to think about. "It's all a bit of a blur, really," he lied. "I was minding my own business, building galaxies, when Lucifer and a few other angels approached me with a 'business proposition'. I thought it was only fair to listen to him, but he was always a bit of a self-inflated prick so I was just about to tell him where he could stick it when the Almighty came along."_

_Jesus drank deeply, a frown settling between his eyes. "She never cast you out for that," he said sceptically._

_"Not exactly," Crowley interrupted. "She started on Lucifer, all the things She was going to do to him for his insubordination, and I couldn't help but wonder - She created all of us the way we are, why was She punishing him for being what She made him? If She had wanted an endless Utopia, wouldn't it have made more sense for Her to talk to him about why he was unhappy there in the first place?"_

_"And you said it out loud," the carpenter guessed, looking amused._

_Crowley nodded blankly, staring out across the room. "I didn't mean to," he lied again. "Besides, She would have known I was thinking it even if I hadn't. Omniscience, and all that. I just remember Her raising Her hand, and then Heaven wasn't there anymore."_

_"You can't be the only angel to have ever asked questions."_

_He thought of Aziraphale: the Flood, the terrified look on the angel's face as he struggled not to interfere. The questions had been there, he just hadn't quite been able to put them into words. "The terrible thing is, I still ask questions," he said dully. "I still don't understand Her plan. They call it the Ineffable Plan - the word 'ineffable' basically meaning 'don't ask questions'. The things I've seen here, the things I've_ done _here, all the people who have suffered and died in the name of Her Plan, and She never tells anyone why."_

_Jesus was silent, his expression unreadable, but he didn't look frightened or angry so Crowley carried on, vomiting up the words that had fermented in his stomach since before Time._

_"God's love is supposed to be unconditional, it's the first thing_ you _say to everyone, I've heard you. But it wasn't for me, or Lucifer, and She never told us what the conditions were until we broke them. It just made me question the whole fair and benevolent God thing, to give us all free will and then punish us for using it the way She must have known we would have. I ask questions because She made me to be curious, and then She condemned me for eternity for it."_

_They paused for a moment as the barman approached with another jug of wine. The carpenter filled Crowley’s cup to the brim and gave him the space to empty it before he spoke again. "The son of God might tell you to have faith," he said, in a tone that said he knew exactly how the words would be received, and he didn't believe them either. "That Her plan will reveal itself, and your part in it." He grinned a surprisingly devillish grin. "_ I _would say to keep doing what you want to do and assume it’s part of the Plan anyway."_

_Crowley had raised a wry eyebrow. "I thought you_ were _the son of God?" He asked dryly. The Messiah tipped his cup at him in an odd sort of salute. Making up his mind on the spot, Crowley stood from the table with a screech of the chair on the floor. "Come with me."_

_Jesus eyed him warily. "Where?"_

_He had waved a wild arm at the door. "The big wide world. The Wilderness."_

"Oh, yes," Crowley said softly to the angel when the memory had passed. "He seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the nations of the world."

"Why?" The angel looked surprised, his mind visibly working to see what wicked motive there could be for taking a young Messiah on a pleasure cruise. Crowley shrugged.

"Well, he was a carpenter from Galilee, his travel opportunities were limited."

The _thunk_ from the first nail and the corresponding shriek of pain caught Crowley unawares, making him flinch. "That's got to hurt," he commented pointlessly. "What was it he said to upset everyone?"

Aziraphale sighed slightly. " _Be kind to each other,_ " he quoted dully.

Crowley nodded distractedly, his eyes fixed on the cross. "Oh. Yeah, that'll do it."

The two of them stood together, wincing with every _crunch_ of the hammer and answering whimper from the Lamb of God, until the crucifix was heaved into the air, and for the briefest of seconds, Crowley caught the dying man's eyes.

_"If you end up in Hell, you never met me," Crowley had joked through the window of the tiny cell earlier in the day, failing to keep the bitterness from his voice at the reality of the suggestion._

_The carpenter smiled. "Of course I did," he said. "You came to me in my sleep and whispered evil thoughts in my ear. You convinced me I was the Son of God. You led me from a life of servitude to a life of blasphemy. All the evil in my life came from you."_

_Crowley had rolled his eyes at the mockery of innocence on the man's face. "Flatterer," he had said dryly, but the facsimile of humour had dropped too quickly. "I am sorry," he had said quietly instead. "I did try, but there's nothing I can do. You've really upset them this time."_

_Jesus had waved it away. "If my life is the price I must pay for the work I have done, then so be it." He had stood, then, and come to the window, and Crowley had seen his own yellow eyes reflected in the other man's. "I have done the best I can for the people I could. My legacy is no longer my own – only Time will tell now."_

_He was thinner now than he had been when they walked the Wilderness, his hair matted, cheekbones hollowed to give him a gaunt look. He reached a too-thin finger through the window of the cell and brushed it gently against Crowley's cheek in an unusual gesture of affection. "Be kind, Crowley," he said softly._

_Crowley had brushed him off irritably. "Demon, remember?" he'd dismissed with a snort. "Kindness is sort of against the Hell Code of Conduct."_

_The Messiah gave him a fond look. "We travelled together for a long time. You cause minor inconveniences, but I've never seen you seriously hurt anyone. All that time you watched me heal the sick, feed the hungry, help the weak, and never once intervened or undid my work. You are no longer an angel, but you are not yet of Hell. I believe you are exactly where you are meant to be, my friend. Your time will come again."_

_He didn't believe the words, and yet somehow still found them comforting._

_The Lamb of God had then said something entirely unexpected. "The angel Aziraphale is something to do with it, I'm sure."_

_Crowley gaped at him. He had thought before breaking into the room that Up There might send the Principality to watch the crucifixion, felt his stomach do a familiar sort of wobble at the idea. But he had not voiced this thought aloud, and he and Jesus had only spoken of the angel a handful of times in their acquaintance. "Why do you say that?" he asked, trying to sound as though the answer did not matter to him._

_"Because you like him," the carpenter said simply._

_He had been too slow to hide the defensive thrill that shot through him this time. "I don't_ like _him," he said automatically. "I tolerate him more than the others."_

_Jesus had smiled. "What's the difference?"_

Crowley looked at the angel for the first time since they had happened upon each other as the cross was lifted, and Aziraphale looked back at him. They smiled weakly at each other. Something twisted deep inside Crowley's chest, as though invisible hands were wringing out his heart, and he realised with a sort of inevitable calmness that Jesus had been right: he liked the angel more than he ever had anyone else, his whole life, even Before. The moments where they bumped into each other had been something like checkpoints in the boredom of eternity, bright spots in the infinite darkness, and if there was any part for him in the Ineffable Plan to come, he wanted Aziraphale there with him.

He knew instantly that this was going to get him into trouble someday.


	2. Soho, 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "pArt TwO sHoUldN'T bE ToO lOnG"
> 
> Don't ever listen to me when I say things.

_Soho, 2019_

"Tell me about the Fall," Aziraphale asked, millenia later when the memory had all but left Crowley's mind, forced out by the averted Armageddon and the new freedom they had found together. The familiar phrase falling from different lips caused a sort of swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach, like pushing off from the ground and opening his wings a moment too late.

He snorted, preparing a sarcastic response to shield himself from the question. One of the things he liked most about the angel was the fact that he never asked questions like that, never really acknowledged what he was unless he was upset. A suitable remark was on the tip of his tongue when he caught the guarded expression on his friend's face and suddenly understood why he was asking.

"You're not going to Fall," he insisted, as reassuringly as he could. "Not the way I did. We'd know by now if She was that cross."

Unsurprisingly, this didn't seem to make Aziraphale feel any better. Adam Young had put the world back together weeks ago, and they had spent most of those weeks together, watching the boy and discovering all the things that he had changed with his last words. While Crowley had felt more free than he ever had in his life, he'd been able to tell that the angel was still concerned. He had thought it just the result of centuries of paranoia, thought it would just take time for Aziraphale to relax. He hadn't realised that all this time, _this_ had been simmering just beneath the surface.

Crowley sighed. "Look - if She'd meant for Armageddon to happen, it would have happened. And if somehow we'd still managed to stop it and She was upset, She wouldn't have left Gabriel and Beelzebub to take care of us, She would have done it Herself. When I..." he took a deep breath. "When Lucifer executed his stupid little plan, She was there instantly. The whole thing was over before any of us even finished our sentences." He looked up at the angel, forcing him to meet his gaze.

"Please trust me, angel. If God had turned Her back on you, you'd know. You'd feel it."

Aziraphale's face twisted, an imperceptible movement anyone else would have missed. "Do _you_ feel it?" he asked.

Crowley swallowed the bile that rose to his throat. "It's the first thing I know about myself," he admitted. "The first thing I understand when I become conscious after sleep, the most important thing I'm aware of, all the time. Like She stuck a knife in my chest and left it there. After so long I'm used to it most of the time, but I always know it's there. And sometimes - a movement, a face, a word - the knife pushes a little deeper, twists a little harder, and it hurts just as much as it did the first time." He gestured violently towards his chest, where he sometimes could almost see the hilt of it protruding, black and twisted.

The angel gaped at him, looking as though a knife had just been plunged into his own chest. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's just... a part of me," Crowley shrugged. "It was never relevant. We've never really talked about the Fall. Or what either of us were before Earth, before Time. Or what we are now."

"I never wanted to think about it," Aziraphale admitted. "I'm sorry. I was insensitive."

He shook his head. "I've spent eternity not wanting to think about it," he said. "And it's easier when I'm with you."

"Because you're closer to Her?" the angel asked.

Crowley smiled softly. "Something like that, I expect," he lied.

It had never seemed to matter so much whether God loved him, when he knew that Aziraphale did.

_"You're mine too, you know."_

_It takes a moment before Crowley even registers that the angel has spoken; the bus has been driving for an hour now and neither of them have spoken a word since they left Oxford, when Crowley had snapped his fingers and then turned to stare out the window as the driver shook his head and pulled back onto the road. He blinks a few times, lifts his head from the vibrations of the bus window to look at Aziraphale, one eyebrow raised questioningly._

_The angel tucks his chin into his chest primly. "I only mean - this morning, when I... discorporated. You said you'd lost your best friend."_

_He won't quite meet Crowley's eyes, his own darting between the floor and the window as though he wants to look at Crowley but just can't bring himself to._

_Crowley remembers it like it was a lifetime ago. "Yeah," he says slowly, looking out of the window again to give his friend some space._

_"I've said some terrible things the last few days," Aziraphale comments after another moment. "I was just frightened, I didn't mean them. Not that that's an excuse, I just... I just want you to know -"_

_"I know, angel," Crowley interrupts him with a tired smile. He lets the pause linger for a moment before finally putting voice to something he'd been holding onto since the bus stop. "I think in a way it's been you and me together against the rest of the world for a long time."_

_The Principality grunts. "Years," he agrees._

_"Centuries," Crowley counters, still staring resolutely out of the window, afraid to see the angel's face. "On some level I think I've known it since Eden."_

_He feels the blond head snap around to face him, but he isn't brave enough to turn around. "Crowley," he says, in that awful pitying tone of voice that he probably doesn't even realise he has but makes Crowley's heart sink to the pit of his stomach every time. Perhaps it was foolish of him to think the angel must have noticed._

_He doesn't reply, and Aziraphale doesn't push the subject, and they don't talk about it again._

Unrequited love had suited Crowley for centuries; kept him moving, distant, just the right amount of mean-spirited to avoid arousing the suspicions of Down There. Being _wicked_ had always appealed to him, but actual _evil_ set his teeth on edge. Hell had provided sufficient cover across the millenia, let him slink away whenever the angel had got that tiny little knowing look in his eye.

But not any more.

Something fundamental had changed between them sat at the bus stop in Tadfield, something that had always been in the shadows plunged starkly into the light before he was quite ready to reveal it. He had felt exposed, naked before Aziraphale, and yet something about it had felt so inevitable that he couldn't bring himself to be frightened about it.

 _"What if the Almighty planned it like this all along_?" he had said, as though he himself were just realising it and had not been thinking it since Mr Young had arrived in that ridiculous red car. " _From the very Beginning?"_

He had been told something similar in a bar nearly two millenia ago. _Just keep doing what you want to do, and assume it's all part of the Plan anyway._

"Jesus was right," he said suddenly.

Aziraphale blinked. "Beg pardon?"

"Christ," Crowley expanded, perhaps unhelpfully. "He liked the idea that you were part of whatever Plan the Almighty had for me." The Angel of the Eastern Gate raised both his eyebrows in a politely incredulous sort of manner. Crowley snorted. "I told you when he died, we knew each other. I was going through a sort of... phase. I hated my name, my human form, my past, _myself._ Hell sent me to check him out and he took one look at me and _knew it all."_ The eyebrows inched higher. "And he just... invited me to sit down with him. We talked for hours, about the Fall, everything. I hated the Almighty for abandoning me when all I had done was follow the instincts She gave me, and I hated that She had this great Ineffable Plan that She wouldn't tell anyone else, that She expected us to just do all these horrible things without ever questioning them, that She gave us our own understanding of right and wrong but then insisted that Her orders were above it and wouldn't ever tell us why." He took a breath to try to get ahead of the words that had tumbled out of his mouth like an avalanche, expanding and unstoppable. When he let the breath out again, slow and measured, he had to close his eyes against the memories welling up behind them.

"The Flood," the angel concluded, his eyes wide.

Crowley laughed bitterly. "The Flood fucked me up a bit, yeah," he agreed like it meant nothing. "It was like... watching the Fall happen to other people, _humans_ , who had even less understanding of it all than Lucifer and the rest of us did. _Kids,_ Aziraphale," he said desperately, watching the angel's eyes swim with the tears he had never been able to summon.

"They made me stay, you know," he said, suddenly feeling like he was watching their conversation from very far away.

The Principality blinked. "They _what?"_

 _"_ After you left," Crowley continued. "They made me stay until it was over. Made me watch everyone running in and out of their houses, climbing on their roofs, desperate for shelter, the children screaming."

Aziraphale looked horrified. His fingers twitched on the stem of his wineglass, like he wanted to reach out, to hold Crowley's hand, but thought better of it. "I didn't know," he said softly. "I'm sorry. I should have stayed with you."

He shook his head. "Why would you have? You shouldn't have to waste your time with me."

Aziraphale suddenly went very still. "I've never considered a moment of the time I spent with you to be wasted time, Crowley," he said quietly. "Even when you weren't saving my stupid life when I did something foolish, even when we just... stood in the park, or had dinner, or just drank here. Even in blasted Golgothia. You always make me feel... like I'm interesting, and funny, like I'm worth spending time with."

"You are all of those things, angel," Crowley said fervently.

"Yes, well," Aziraphale huffed, a fetching blush rising to his cheeks. "So are you. I don't understand why you find that so hard to believe."

"Because - you're an angel, you are... good, and kind, as God made you. I'm not. I'm what I made myself. You are so much better than me that you literally exist on a different plane."

Aziraphale, frowning heavily, uttered a word Crowley had only heard from him once before. "Bollocks," he said confidently.

Crowley sat up straighter, but his friend was apparently not finished. "I am just as much a product of my own decisions as you. We both started off in the same place, and so did everyone else. It's our choices that have led us all to where we are. Each of us was made the way that we were, maybe for our own purpose in the Plan, maybe not - it's both for both of us, and also neither. You decided to leave Heaven just as much as I decided to stay, and whether it was all part of some Great Ineffable Plan almost doesn't matter anymore."

For a moment both of them were silent, Crowley too shocked to respond as he took in what the blond was saying. Aziraphale took a deep breath, and suddenly he looked almost scared, his fingers dancing nervously along the rim of the glass in his hand. Then he met Crowley's eyes, shaky but determined.

"And now, I'm deciding I want to be here," he said firmly. "With you."

He blinked, watched as though from outside his own body as the angel finally let go of his wineglass and reached for his hand, taking it firmly. "And I don't care if that's what She meant for me or not. She gave all of us the ability to decide for ourselves what's right, and this is what I think is right. Plan or no Plan, you're the only thing that's always felt right for me."

 _"Angel,"_ Crowley breathed, turning his hand so that their fingers intertwined.

He was right, of course. He had liked Aziraphale more than any other being for as long as he could remember; it wasn't the first time he had wondered whether the Almighty hadn't meant it to be this way, whether if She would be upset by it She wouldn't have done something about it already. Whether the overwhelming _pull_ he had always felt towards the angel hadn't been by Her design all along. Even a false Messiah in Golgothia who had never met Aziraphale had known they would end up here.

He looked up at the Principality, his eyes wide and earnest, his rich lower lip quivering slightly, and the usual rush of affection made him feel strangely calm, the ever-present knife ache in his chest easing just a little.

Crowley took a deep breath, pushed aside all the reasons why he couldn't, and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a Part II set after Almostgeddon that I'm about 70% finished with, but the two parts don't quite fit together just yet. I want to say it'll be along soon, but this part had been sitting half finished in my hard drive for nearly a year before something compelled me to finish it today so I guess you never know! Please let me know what you think and that might encourage and shape Part II.


End file.
